2017

Today I wish to introduce myself and share with you the reason why I started this blog page. My name is Robyn, I am a sole parent after separating from my first husband 10 years ago due to domestic violence. It has been a long road to recovery and this blog is the sharing of my experiences, my ups and downs, the lessons I have learnt along the way. Still to this day I am learning and moving past things, having insight as more and more healing occurs. My desire for sharing this with you is to help, inspire, uplift, empower and support you in your journey too. We are never alone, although at times it does feel that way and if I can be there for you through my experiences then setting up this blog page has purpose and meaning for me.

Who am I?

I am a woman, in my late 40’s, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I live in Brisbane, Australia with my two teenage children, my son now 16 who has Cerebral Palsy and my daughter now 14. We have been for the past four and a half years doing home-schooling, until recently. My son went back to school at the beginning of this year (2017) for year 11 and my daughter returned to school in term 3 of this year for year 8. I am the youngest sibling of three, live in Brisbane, while the rest of my family live in the lower parts of Australia. We have moved around a lot, making having a close network of support difficult to achieve. I love to travel, although have not had much opportunity in the past 17 years to do so, I enjoy writing, reading, learning, taking photographs of flowers and nature and make soy wax candles and melts. Now that my time has been freed up with the kids returning to school this has given me the opportunity to start this blog page and open up a healing practice as well.

The beginnings of my first marriage

My husband and I were together for almost 18 years, married for the last 12 of those years. From the start it was a difficult relationship. We met in New Zealand while I was on a two week tour of duty with the Australian Army Reserves. He was a full time New Zealand Army Corporal. After returning to Australia we kept in contact and a few months later I found myself moving over to Auckland to be with him. It certainly was learning experience moving away from all my friends and family which back then, I had a close network. I left everything I knew to be in a strange country only knowing my boyfriend at the time and a few of his mates I had met while over there with the Army. I soon found out his controlling ways and at the time felt I had nowhere to go, no money to return home, very confused and alone. At times I had the courage to leave only to find not long after I returned thinking I had to do better, I had to be better, somehow change as I felt it was all my doing. This was to be the pattern of the relationship, unit l finally I was able to leave and not go back 18 years later.

How I broke free

During the whole relationship I had left so many times only to return as I still felt alone and nowhere to go although we had moved back to Australia before we got married. I felt so alone in that relationship, thought it was all my fault and I had no support. I felt I could not turn to my family and friends because I was ashamed of myself that I could not get anything right.

After trying for have children for a couple of years, I fell pregnant with our first child in 2001, He was born prematurely at 28 weeks gestation and as a result has mild Cerebral Palsy that affects his right side of his body mostly his right leg where the calf muscle is tight making it difficult for his heel to touch the ground. Two years later our second child was born, a girl who went over by 9 days. I did not want to have children and it was what he wanted and talked me into doing so. Please don’t get me wrong, I love my children very much and would do anything for them. I would not change things and am happy to be blessed with them in my life, just saying prior to having children I did not want to have them. It was my children that led me to finally leave the marriage and not return. To me, I guess as a person you can keep putting up with things and trying to make things better, with no success that is, but when you see your children suffering, for me it was time to leave. We had left once before but again gave it another go but it not last long and I could see I had to get the kids out of that environment. We left. We drove out, telling my husband I was dropping my son to school and we didn’t go back. We had only the clothes on our backs, whatever fuel was in the car (we had two cars) and nowhere to stay, no money in the bank or purse, but I wasn’t going back and would somehow figure it out.

Where to from there

We ended up staying in crisis accommodation for 3 months while receiving counselling and getting legal and financial help. It was a very lonely time as we couldn’t tell anyone where we were for privacy and protection reasons, we had to check in our mirrors every time we drove in the drive to see if there was anyone following us, we could not have visitors only the counsellors. So here we were in a women’s shelter, alone, confused, the kids not able to fully understand why we were not going home, and all the emotions I was dealing with myself on a personal level. It was a very challenging time. We could not leave the state to be with my family down southern NSW as this would be seen that I was kidnapping my own children and would result in the police collecting the children and returning them to their father.

After three months in the shelter I was able to find a private house to rent to move to so my children and I could start over and get on with our new lives.

The road to recovery

The next 7 years we were in that house, slowly building our lives, learning how to be a sole parent, learning to cope on my own. It has not been easy in any sense of the word. With all my family living in the southern parts of Australia, no friends as these we destroyed with the ending of the marriage, no money to visit family it was a very lonely difficult time yet again. The only people I knew were other mums from school or day care where I didn’t have a close connection to any of them enough that I felt I could turn to for someone to talk to.

I was having a hard time figuring out how to be a sole parent when dealing with all that is going on inside of me. I fell into depression and was just in survival mode for many many years, I still feel I am in some ways just surviving. I had no confidence, no self worth and no belief in myself what so ever. I took everyone’s advice as truth and that I was doing everything wrong. It took some years before I realised that the way that felt right for me to parent and what worked for my children was ok. It was ok to follow what I believed in and I started to gain a little bit of self belief that I could do this. Little by little I slowly gained some self confidence and started trusting myself with the help from books, counsellors and a lot of reflection and learning about myself and who I am. I still have a long way to go and I don’t think the journey will ever end because we are always growing and evolving.

Sharing

It is with sharing my experiences of this journey and even my whole life that I can be of some help to others, to let you know you are not alone, to give hope to those of you going through similar experiences, to inspire and empower you to keep going, you are not alone and you will get through this.

Sharing this with you today was very emotional for me and have been writing through the tears and hope this has given you some insight of what this blog page is all about.

If you found this blog helpful in anyway, please leave a comment below. If there is anything I can do please reach out..